Prof charts rise of anti-government groups

PULLMAN — What motivates a person to participate in an event like the storming of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and how those involved justify their actions are questions Sam Jackson asked at his talk at the WSU Foley Institute on Wednesday.

Jackson is an assistant professor in the department of emergency management and homeland security at the University of Albany in New York. His research focuses on conspiracy and anti-government extremists.

Jackson spoke about the Oathkeepers group, which is one of many anti-government groups in the United States. Jackson gave some background on the group that was founded in 2009. It formed around the ideas that the American government is becoming tyrannical and those in the group needed to create a resistance.

“The moment that most of us know about them is, of course, the Jan. 6 insurrection, where we saw a number of members of the organization, as well as people who didn’t have formal membership,” Jackson said.

The Oathkeepers were involved in a few high-profile events before 2021, including the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada, the Sugar Pine Mine in southwest Oregon and the Malheur Refuge occupation in southeast Oregon. Jackson said there was a slight shift from the group around 2016 — it stopped talking about threats from the government and started talking about threats from other Americans.

Jackson said there are three reasons that groups like the Oathkeepers rely on retellings of American conflict. These include making sense of contemporary America, modeling appropriate behavior given their understanding of America and to justify its goals and actions to the wider public.

“I like to think of Oathkeepers as a concrete example of a much broader phenomenon,” Jackson said.

Anti-government extremist groups primarily believe that the government is tyrannical or becoming tyrannical, Jackson said. These groups aren’t necessarily directly linked to white supremacists groups.

The retelling of American conflicts, particularly the Revolutionary War, helps the groups build the case that their actions make sense, Jackson said. Oathkeepers have both subtle and nonsubtle ways of spreading this idea. In the “Orders We Will Not Obey,” Jackson said they call back to George Washington and liken gun control regulations to the British, who confiscated guns in the colonies.

“Thinking back to Jan. 6, thinking back to dramatic images that we saw – that we are not used to seeing in this country — political violence is not considered justified within this country for the most part,” Jackson said.

Jackson said because of this idea, the Oathkeepers draw on the founders and use abstract ideas with vague definitions to gain legitimacy. The group also uses strategic ambiguity to give them plausible deniability for members’ actions and to cover a wider audience.

While political violence is not accepted in modern America, Jackson said that for many Americans, it can be easy to agree with the vague ideas about tyranny and fall into extremism. Jackson said while the groups may talk about violence, it is likely only a few of their members would act on it.

Jackson’s entire talk can be viewed on the Foley Institute Youtube channel.

Kali Nelson can be reached at knelson@dnews.com.